Omar Musa - Here Come the Dogs

mate.’

‘What’s it for?’

‘Block of flats.’

‘Why here?’ My voice high-pitched.

‘Not my decision, mate. It’s business.’

I haven’t cried in years,

not since Dad died,

but there it is.

I turn away, head down,

and I feel like a shuddering prow,

and I can hear him back at work,

then laughing into his phone

as if I’m not even there,

and I’m walking away, away

and I hear him yell at me from afar:

‘It’s just a bloody basketball court, mate.’

Jimmy is lying in bed, imagining that he’s a swinging door between a room lit by a blinking red light and a garden filled with limbless, headless statues. His phone rings and he answers it with eyes closed.

It is the voice. ‘James?’

‘The fuck do you want?’ Jimmy’s voice is slow, not yet awake.

‘Are you hungry? Are you hungry, James?’

Jimmy touches his belly. As if by magic, he is overwhelmed by hunger, a massive expanding balloon in his gut. He nods.

‘I thought so,’ the voice says. ‘What do you have in the fridge?’

‘Nothin.’

‘Well, get up. I told you I would teach you how to make curry. Do you like curry, James?’

Jimmy wants to hang up but the hunger is unbearable, so instead he nods. He gets up in his sweaty clothes and puts on shoes. He walks to the supermarket and it’s open but empty. Despite the bright colours, it reminds him of a desert. The voice directs him down the aisles and orders him to buy vegetables and spices. Jimmy pays for it all at a self-service register. As he walks away, he realises he didn’t see another person in there.

* * *

‘I want you to put the rice on, James.’

‘I’ve never cooked rice before.’

‘Never cooked rice?’ The voice is horrified, but turns jovial. ‘No worries. It’s a piece of cake, as long as you cook with love.’

Jimmy moves robotically, taking orders, pouring the rice into a pot, adding hot water, turning on the stove. His movements are sedate but precise, as if he is popping and locking in slow motion. The voice continues: ‘Now usually I’d trim the meat, but with the fat it tastes better, and this is a special occasion. So, cut the beef into cubes. After that slice the onions — rough is fine. Got it? Then, mince the garlic and ginger, really fine. It’s important to bring out the flavours.’

Jimmy carefully starts cutting the meat, surprised at how easily the knife goes through it. He cuts the larger potatoes into equal quarters, the smaller ones in half, places them in a bowl.

‘I learned this when I was a kid growing up in India,’ says the voice.

Jimmy doesn’t reply, his mouth too dry to conjure words.

‘If you know how to make a basic curry, it’ll serve you well throughout your life. My mother told me that.’

‘I thought you said you grew up in Mexico,’ Jimmy manages to say.

The voice grows faint. ‘I’ve been around.’

Jimmy keeps cutting.

‘Now. Heat the oil. Fry the onions until they are not quite golden. Leave them a bit pale. Add the ginger and garlic after that, then all the spices. Turmeric, garam masala, coriander seeds, cloves, cardamom. Now, leave them to fry. Put on some music in the meantime, maybe. You can keep these spices now, see? Build up a nice spice rack — annoying at first but worth it. Remember this recipe for later so you can impress your lady friends. You got any lady friends?’

‘A few things on the boil,’ mumbles Jimmy. The curry smells delicious and his mouth fills with saliva.

‘You know they usedta have greyhound jockeys?’ Suddenly the voice is fleshed out, human, colloquial.

‘What? What’s that?’

‘Monkeys that ride greyhounds. Here, in Australia.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Seriously. They had water and hurdles, too.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ says Jimmy, stirring the curry.

‘How could I make that up?’ the voice laughs.

‘Well, where can we see em?’

‘Ah, they stopped doing it in the fifties. The monkeys had a strike cos they weren’t being paid enough.’

Jimmy laughs, despite himself. Then he grows serious. ‘Tell me the truth. Where are you from? Who are you?’

There’s a click, silence and when the voice returns, it’s distant and urbane again.

‘Check your rice. It should be almost ready to eat.’

The line goes dead.

Jimmy wants to call back but it’s a private number. With both hands, he pats down his body, as if looking for his wallet. He can feel his ribs, and his skin is gross. He wonders if he can touch his spine through his belly button. When he starts eating, he can’t stop. It is a demonic hunger. He has cooked enough for four people, but he eats and eats until there’s not a single grain of rice or spot of curry. Resting the cutlery on the plate, he looks around then jumps up, food swinging in his gut, and runs to the door.

The night has turned incredibly cold. Mercury Fire is shivering in the back yard, freezing or terrified or both. Jimmy hugs him close then brings him inside and feeds him. The dog eats fiendishly, as if he too is fuelled by the same hunger. Once satisfied, the dog looks at him with its shining eye, kind and hopeless. Jimmy pats him and whispers, ‘Hello, little dog. Hello, little dog, my friend.’ He brushes him with the cat brush and pats his flanks. Mercury Fire curls up at his feet. Is this the only real love possible? The dumb love of an animal? He looks into Mercury’s eye and swears he can hear a voice saying, ‘Don’t worry, Jimmy, you are going to make it. Even if there’s no one else, I am here with you.’

Jimmy smiles weakly and falls asleep.

‘What was I saying? Oh yeah. So. years ago, a spaceman came to our hometown. Landed right on the outskirts. Wearing a massive round helmet, he walks straight to a pack of feral dogs sitting under a tree, bro. He speaks in their language, and teaches em how to dig up bones. Then he leads em to a kink in the river and tells em to start digging. They do it, and what they unearth are the graves of blackfullas. A massacre. The dogs dig em all up — femurs, skulls, ribs — and begin dragging em to the doorstep of the mayor and the town councillors at night. These old white cunts, right, they wake up to get their morning paper, or milk, and what do they find? Blackened old bones piled on their doormats, bro. They wonder, where did they come from? But this mayor, he’s a sharp one. He knows. He tells em, “Don’t whisper a word to anyone about this or by God you’ll be doing the air dance in no time.” So they get some other blackfullas from the outskirts of town and force them to bury the bones far away, down in the gorge. But the spaceman? He’d taught those dogs well. They found the bones again, dug em up and brought em back to the doorsteps of the town. This went on for two whole weeks, mate, till eventually the mayor gave an order: shoot every dog in sight, cremate them on a pyre with the blackfullas’ bones and crush the whole fucken lot to powder.

‘As he watched the pyre burning, the mayor’s eyes turned into two black opals in his face. That fire burned so bright that you could see redness in the sky all the way down on the south coast.’

Midday

A redblood sky.

Here I fucken am, ay?

Booze on booze,

every cell liquor-filled,

the sun crushing me like a can,

pavement so hot

my sneakers leave sticky tread marks.

I call Scarlett.

‘I love you, baby. You know I do.’

Slurring.

Steady now.

Laughter.

Is that her or someone else?